Aidan O'Brien | Greatest Racehorse Trainers

By Timeform — published 27th June 2020

Timeform profile Aidan O'Brien, highlighting the best horses he has trained, the big races he has won and the owners and jockeys he has been associated with.

Trainer

Aidan O’Brien

Yard location

County Tipperary, Ireland

Trainers’ championships

Britain, Flat – 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008, 2016, 2017

Ireland, Flat – 1997, 1999 – 2019 (21 titles)

Ireland National Hunt – 1993/94, 1994/95, 1995/96, 1996/97, 1997/98

Associated jockeys

Ryan Moore, Joseph O’Brien, Johnny Murtagh, Kieren Fallon, Jamie Spencer, Mick Kinane

Notable owners

John Magnier,Michael Tabor,Derrick Smith,J. P. McManus

133 – Stravinsky,Rock Of Gibraltar,George Washington,Fame And Glory,So You Think,Excelebration

132 – Australia, Duke Of Marmalade, Dylan Thomas, High Chaparral, Giant’s Causeway

Other notable horses

Istabraq – Champion Hurdle (1998, 1999, 2000)

St Nicholas Abbey – Coronation Cup (2011, 2012, 2013) Breeders’ Cup Turf (2011)

Found – Breeders' Cup Turf (2015), Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (2016)

Betting hints (Information correct prior to 2020 Flat season)

- Over the last five seasons, Aidan O’Brien-trained juveniles on debut have won at a strike rate of 10.09% with the average Timeform rating achieved being 69.21. On their second starts the strike rate leaps to 29.41%, whilst the average Timeform rating improves significantly to 81.39, showing O’Brien’s modus operandi with his youngsters.

- In comparison with other big yards, Aidan O’Brien has relatively few three-year-olds that make the transition to handicaps but they are worth noting, especially on handicap debut. Over the last five seasons his runners have achieved a very healthy P/L of £32.21 and Run To Form percentage of 69.44%, putting O’Brien in the top three for those categories amongst all trainers in Britain and Ireland to have had more than 50 qualifying runners.

- Aidan O’Brien’s record at York makes for interesting reading. Over the last five seasons, he has had just four winners (Japan, Seventh Heaven, Idaho & Fairyland) from 78 runners, returning a strike rate of 5.13%, and a P/L of -63.34. Compared with the likes of Chester (33.33%, -£1.34 P/L) and Newmarket's Rowley Mile course (19.43%, £22.37 P/L) it shows that the Knavesmire has not been a happy hunting ground. His runners have also fared badly on Timeform’s ‘Run To Form’ statistic, achieving just 57.69% compared with the likes of Ascot (65.16%), Epsom (66.07%) and Chester (69.44%).

Profile

Aidan O’Brienbegan his career in racing with Curragh trainer PJ Finn, and was later assistant trainer to both Jim Bolger and Anne-Marie Crowley (whom he would later marry). He was Ireland’s champion amateur rider in 1993/94, the same season in which he also trained his first winner (Wandering Thoughts at Tralee) on his first day as a licensed trainer, and was champion national hunt trainer in Ireland for five consecutive seasons, from 1993/94 to 1997/98. In 1996 he moved to Ballydoyle and gained his first Irish champion trainers’ crown the following year, a title that he has held consecutively since 1999. In 2001 he became the youngest ever champion trainer in Britain and has since added five more titles, most recently in 2017. Prior to the start of the 2020 Flat season, O’Brien had trained a remarkable 328 Group 1 winners.

The 90s

Aidan O’Brien initially made his name as a jumps trainer with his standout horse being Istabraq, a four-time winner at the Cheltenham Festival, his haul including three Champion Hurdles between 1998 and 2000. He was crowned champion trainer over jumps in Ireland five times, from 1993/94 to 1997/98, during which period he achieved the notable accomplishment of saddling the first three home in the 1995 Galway Plate. O’Brien’s tenure at Ballydoyle began in 1996 and the new partnership got off to the best of starts as Desert King provided O’Brien with his first Group 1 winner in the National Stakes; the same horse would go on to give O’Brien his first taste of Classic success the following year by winning both the Irish 2000 Guineas and the Irish Derby.

During 1997 O’Brien also saddled his first Royal Ascot winner, Harbour Master in the Coventry Stakes, and in 1998 he trained his first 2000 Guineas winner, King Of Kings, and Oaks winner, Shahtoush. A notable performer towards the end of the decade was Stravinsky who, in 1999, benefited no end from a drop back to sprinting, putting up top-class performances to win both the July Cup and the Nunthorpe.

The 2000s

O’Brien kicked off the new millennium with a season defined by Giant’s Causeway, who gained the nickname ‘The Iron Horse’ owing to his remarkably game and consistent nature. He racked up a string of five Group 1 successes, starting with the St James’s Palace Stakes and culminating in the Irish Champion Stakes. In 2001 O’Brien gained the first of his British trainers’ titles, helped in no small part by the exploits of the now legendary Galileo, who gave him a first Derby success at Epsom and followed that up with victory in the Irish Derby and King George.

In 2002 O’Brien had an especially strong team, with Rock of Gibraltar getting the better of Hawk Wing in the 2000 Guineas and High Chaparral winning the Derby (also at the chief expense of Hawk Wing). The following year, Hawk Wing would put up the single best performance by an O’Brien-trained horse when achieving a Timeform rating of 136 in the Lockinge, whilst High Chaparral would make it two from two at the Breeders’ Cup when memorably dead-heating with Johar in the Turf.

O’Brien’s skills were tested to the limit in 2008 by the talented, but quirky pair of Scorpion and Oratorio – Scorpion was expertly handled to win the St Leger whilst Oratorio, who was prone to racing indolently, was coerced to win both the Eclipse and the Irish Champion Stakes, lowering the colours of Derby hero Motivator on each occasion. Another horse that benefited no end from O’Brien’s expertise was Dylan Thomas, who went from strength to strength almost with each race, racking up a quartet of Group 1 wins in 2007, culminating in O’Brien’s first Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe triumph.

Henrythenavigator was the star in 2008, winning the 2000 Guineas, the Irish 2000 Guineas, the St James’s Palace Stakes and the Sussex Stakes. Old rival Raven’s Pass would later get the better of him in both the QEII and the Breeders’ Cup Classic, their battles defining the season.

John Oxx’s outstanding colt Sea The Stars dominated in 2009, but it’s easy to forget that O’Brien had a pair of top-class performers in his care in the form of Mastercraftsman and Rip Van Winkle. Both were beaten three times by Sea The Stars but, between them, they also gained five Group 1 wins that year, with Rip Van Winkle adding another in 2010.

A horse that will be remembered more than most during this time, however, is Yeats, whose career demonstrated all of O’Brien’s talents. Gaining a first Gold Cup win at Ascot in 2006 he began 2009, as an eight-year-old entire, with a disappointing reappearance run. O’Brien stoked the fires one last time, however, and Yeats responded, landing a fourth Gold Cup and becoming just the second horse in Royal Ascot history to win the same race more than three times.

The 2010s

Like Rip Van Winkle and Mastercraftsman, Fame And Glory was beaten on three occasions by Sea The Stars. The new decade would take his career in a different direction, however, and he won a brace of middle-distance Group 1s in 2010 before being moulded into a stayer by O’Brien, landing the Gold Cup at Ascot the following year. In 2011 O’Brien also landed his fifth Eclipse Stakes, courtesy of Australian import So You Think, but it’s a year that may well be remembered most fondly by the O’Brien household for exploits in America.

St Nicholas Abbey, expertly brought back to the track following an injury-plagued three-year-old campaign, capped his year with a scintillating win in the Breeders’ Cup Turf, making son Joseph the youngest jockey to ride a Breeders’ Cup winner. Aidan and Joseph would go on to enjoy more record-breaking success together with Camelot in 2012, becoming the first father/son trainer/jockey combination to win the Derby at Epsom, a feat they would repeat with Australia in 2014, whose win also made O’Brien the only person to train Derby winners in three successive seasons.

Further Classic success continued to pour in for O’Brien, courtesy of both Gleneagles and Qualify in 2015, while 2016 would become another record-breaking year as he saddled the first three home in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe won by Found. It was also a season that saw Minding land five top-level successes, including both the 1000 Guineas and the Oaks, and O’Brien sent out seven winners at Royal Ascot, equalling Sir Henry Cecil’s record for number of winners during the week.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, given O’Brien’s record, that he managed to top that year in 2017 but what he achieved was remarkable. The only Classics that he missed out on were the Oaks at both Epsom and the Curragh (losing out to Enable on both occasions) but his squad made amends in no uncertain terms, breaking Bobby Frankel’s record, set in 2003, for the number of top-level wins in a calendar year. Frankel’s tally of 25 was surpassed when Saxon Warrior won the Racing Post Trophy and two further successes later in the year would take O’Brien’s tally to 28 - an exceptional feat.

O’Brien landed his most recent British trainers’ title in 2017, but the Ballydoyle juggernaut has continued to roll on and there has been plenty of Classic success, including a Guineas double in 2019 thanks to Magna Grecia and Hermosa, and the Derby with Anthony Van Dyck. In 2019 O’Brien belatedly opened his account in the Champion Stakes courtesy of Magical, while Japan lowered the colours of Crystal Ocean in the Juddmonte International.

* Article published July 2020

Aidan O'Brien | Greatest Racehorse Trainers | Timeform (2024)

References